Research into sociopathy/psychopathy has made a great deal of progress over the last 30 years. Even so, there is much that research does not address. For example, sociopaths are described as callous, lacking in empathy and without remorse for their hurtful actions. These sterile descriptors always fall short of really conveying the evil of the disordered.
A good 6 months before the Madoff story broke, I began a project to connect with the family members of professional con artists. The purpose of this project is to document the within family behavior of con artists and to link that “profession” to psychopathic personality traits. I have had good success connecting with family members and the exchange of information has been healing all around.
One con artist is in prison for affinity fraud- the use of a church, or other social connection to perpetrate fraud. This man was good at pretending to be a great “Christian” and used his church affiliation to swindle people. There is no doubt he is highly psychopathic as this is his second prison term and the descriptions given by his ex-wife are that of a classic sociopath.
Like many con artists, this man also has children. One of his daughters is the same age (within a couple of weeks) as my eldest daughter; she just turned 18. I spoke with this young lady with the permission of her mother and have had an ongoing dialogue with her. She wanted to talk to me because she was taking psychology in high school and had figured out on her own that her father is a sociopath.
This young lady is such a gem, so I’ll call her Gem here. She is smart, lovely and kind-hearted. In her own way she has been coming to grips with the reality that her father is incapable of love. He wasn’t physically violent but he has been callous, lacking in empathy and emotionally abusive toward everyone in the family. There I go with the adjectives that describe a sociopath.
Researchers are puzzled by the phenomenon of empathy in sociopaths. Although sociopaths seem to know all too well what others are thinking and feeling, they don’t respond in a normal way to what they know. Instead, they use their knowledge of others to manipulate. When the manipulation is perpetrated on a child or vulnerable teen/ young adult it is especially evil.
Gem shared with me the birthday communication she received from her imprisoned father. With her permission, I share it with you. She and I both hope this example will help other family members heal and move on. When I read the card, I was outraged and knew immediately the effect it had on my young friend. Without a lengthy explanation, a person ignorant of sociopaths would never “get it” regarding the manipulation I saw as blatant manipulation. Here is what the card said:
” My sweet baby girl, I miss you and love you very much. Happy 18th birthday. It seems like yesterday I held this little tiny baby with the biggest most beautiful eyes. I have so many great memories of you, handfuls of dog food, pretty little dresses. You played soccer but hated it. You danced and laughed your way into everyone’s heart. You are all a father could ever ask for in a daughter. I pray for you every day. May you find the best in life as you begin your adult life. I hope your dreams come true. You’re wonderful, beautiful, and always will be my little girl. God bless you.
Love Dad”
OK an ignorant person reading this would say, “What a sweet, nice card, to get from a father.” This communication might also be cited as an example of how hard it is for the kids of the imprisoned to be separated from their loving parents who made, “mistakes in life.”
A person who really knows sociopaths would react with outrage as I did. I know that just a few short months before this card, the father in question stole money from his ex-wife. Money she was using to take care of Gem, his little girl. Furthermore, all during Gem’s childhood he was conning people including family members out of their money. He never had any real connection to Gem. She never felt he loved or wanted her. This card in my view was pure evil, why? because it preyed upon this beautiful Gem, a young lady who always wished for a real father.
When she sent me what her father had written, I responded, “I am speechless over that card, it must represent everything you wish he would have said to you your whole life. I hope you keep it and believe in your heart, mind and soul that this is what YOU DESERVE always and forever from your parents and your boyfriend/future husband.”
Here is what Gem said in response to my interpretation, “it did just trigger something in me that just made me cry. I couldn’t help but break down and cry after reading that because I HAVE always wanted to hear that from a father-figure but now… it’s too late.”
This con artist, bored in prison is writing cards, hoping for some entertaining responses, while his family is working to heal, make sense of it all, and move on. The words of the card, if left unchecked by reality, delay the moving on that is so important. Gem is off to college next fall and is moving on to a great life that she will make for herself.
It is only my personal knowledge of sociopaths and how they operate that enabled the correct interpretation of the birthday card. Please feel free to share your own examples of a sociopath’s manipulation of your emotions. Particularly useful are examples of a sociopath’s use of words that are superficially appropriate, but very inappropriate given the specific circumstances.
yes – we are writing so that we will get our own message. LF to me has been like journaling – love fraud is a class room – Lovefraud give’s you hope when there is none. LF pick’s you up and dust’s you off and helps you put back a life that is healing instead of dying – I may be on a healing journey from here on out – but at least I am healing.
LIG: I had that kind of relationship with my mom-in-law, the mother of the guy I married at 18. Unfortunately on many counts, she died before I divorced the guy. I’m sure she would have been my champion, because she knew the truth about her son before I married him.
rune: yea. but while championing you, there may have always been that truth that her loyalties were greatly divided … after all, it is her son. when my ex’s mom died, that is when he really lost all boundaries. our relationship was always close before then. once she was gone, he really went off … withholding sex, being verbally abusive, saying he was coming over and never showing up. the last year with him was hell on earth. and after 20 yrs together, i was floored that he would give me up. but finding a youngun’ with a nice butt trumped years of loyalty and closeness. and so it goes…
OxDrover:
I just logged on after spending a couple of hours going round and round nd round with my parents and the situation with my con-man brother and how he is treating his children.
Like you, I wonder how I managed to escape the toxic gene pool I came from. I never wanted kids for fear of continuing the line. Ditto my youngest sibling.
As for the one who had the kids, I see how neglectful they are. Are my parents there for my nieces and nephews? Yes. But, they’re in their 80s.
I told them point-blank that they have to draw a line in the sand. Insist he go to a parenting class. Insist he move out of the house. Insist he sell his expensive toys and start paying bills.
But, they don’t want to hear what I have to say.
Instead I got martyrdom. And mind-boggling statements like “We don’t understand how WE could raise a child who could be abusive. We don’t understand how WE could raise a child who could be neglectful.” Etc, etc., etc.
Nothing like revisionist history, I say.
Hey Matt: Can you do the Asian cultural thing and give them a way to save face? Like, “Sometimes these things just happen, and it isn’t necessarily about parenting . . .” Because, they are unlikely to budge even a little if it means admitting their part in any of it. (Especially in their 80s.)
I find it amazing that they can even acknowledge that there might be abuse and neglect going on!
And, part B, parenting classes, etc., are unlikely to change the problem person, if it’s as you say. So, what other solutions might be available?
(Ahhhh, . . . I feel for you.)
Rune:
Interesting that you bring up the Asian cultural thing since my S was Asian.
Among the many clubs he would bludgeon me with was “You’ll never understand. It’s an Asian thing.”
So, since I was in love with an Asian, I read the literature on Asian culture. He saw the books. His response? Why are you poking around in my background? Sigh…
AS for the situation at hand, the neglect and abuse aren’t bad enough (yet) to haul him into court. Instead, he’d probably uproot the kids again, until my parent caved into his demands again. I agree parenting classes probably won’t work, but that’s about the only card that can be played at this point.
As for my non-Asian parents, the discussion, as always, rapidly went from the rational to the ridiculous. I just finally told them I gave them what as I saw as the only options and I would always be there for the kids, but I couldn’t go up against my brother.
Matt, my mother will be 80 in April this year. She has been in DENIAL for her entire life. My stepfather, bless his heart, kept her somewhat squelched down while he was alive, but she is alone and desperate now.
In many ways, I see a trauma bond (her brother physically abused her from age infant til age 7, her mother protected him) I see enabling, I see denial, I see bald faced lies (something I never expected, though Iguess I should have) I see protecting the family “image” and I see controlling in her parenting, I see manipulation, I see guilting, I see holier-tha-thou hypocracy, I see all sorts of dysfunction in her life.
Yet, putting it together I can’t see enough of a pattern. Maybe it is histrionic personality disorder, maybe just toxic enabling, I see some push-pull, but not enough elements of any one disorder to say “Ah ha” that’s it! So I invented my term of “Psychopathic by proxy” and I guess that about sums it up. Maybe it is Stockholm Syndrome with her brother and now placed on my P-son as a surgate for Uncle Monster.
I don’t guess it makes a bit of difference what the label is. It is TOXIC.
Matt, I know it may sound radical, because I never dreamed you even COULD “divorce” your parents or your kids, but I have “divorced” my mother and my P-son. I never could have dealt with ME without doing that. Even if my son was not dangerous to my life, I HAD TO DO IT. Even if my mother had not been sending money to him, I HAD TO DO IT, for me.
You cannot convince your parents (especially at this age) to accept a belief that is so foreign to their “happiness”—they are past the age of being able to make drastic changes. You know how it hurt you, how painful it was, to accept that your P was a P–can you even imagine how they (your parents) would hurt if they accepted the truth at this late stage in their lives? They don’t have the strength, the ability to bear pain as they “wind down” the history of their lives, as they face their own ultimate ends. Denial is the only thing that protects them. It isn’t much of a protection but it is all they have, and they will not give it up.
You have only two choices as I see it. One choice is to NC both your parents and your con-man brother, or the other is to keep some form of contact and KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT and “let’s pretend we are a nice normal family” and pass the sweet potatoes, Please.
Sure it is how could “WE do X?” It is all about them. Their NS depends on their children being successful. Their NS depends on others thinking well of them.
Your neices and nephews are “on their own” at this point in time unless they have another parent to be there for them. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot you can do aobut it one way or the other. Matt, you can’t fix your family any more than I could mine.
My 2 half sibs that are not Ps and haven’t seen me since they were little children don’t want contact with me (though that pained me very much at first and for years) but that is their call not mine. I’m not sure why they want NC with me I’m sure my P-bio-father told them God knows what about me, but I am sorry they feel that way, but I have to accept it.
I don’t want contact with my half bro who is like my P-bio-father, so I am “out of” siblings, even half sibs. I have a very distant relationship with the two daughters of Uncle Monster and a fairly close one with their brother (the only first cousins I have on that side) and I don’t even know my first cousins on my P-bio-father’s side, so my two sons and I are essentially all of our own family. But you know what, it is BETTER now than it was when I was trying to “deal” with all the drama and pain. I realize if I was all of my own family, I would be enough as long as I wasn’t dealing with the drama, as long as I wasn’t trying and hoping to fix the unfixable.
Sigh, Matt, I do know how much I hurt having to admit that my family was TOXIC, that my visions of this “nice normal family” was a fantasy my mother had dreamed up, and imparted to me to carry on the “family tradition.” I don’t want that.
The Bible tells us to “do not be unequally yoked.” (I know this is taken out of context here but it works anyway) Since I have trained oxen and other draft animals I KNOW what that means. If you yoke a horse/mule/donkey to a plow with an oxen they are UNEQUALLY yoked and they both suffer. If you yoke a big ox with a little ox to the plow they both suffer and you get prescious little plowing done, AND it goes crooked.
We yoke ourselves to the people we associate with, and if it is UNEQUAL then nothing goes right. It never will. The only thing you can do is to get out of that yoke, NC–pull the plow alone if that’s the only way, but being “UN-equally” yoked makes it harder on you than trying to pull the plow yourself, because you ahve to drag not only the plow but pull the yoke-mate as well so your load is a lot more heavy.
I have UN-yoked myself from anything or anyone (regardless of the relationship) that hampers me getting on with life.
Matt, it must be very frustrating for you to watch the drama unfold with your con-man brother and your parents…but ask yourself, and decide what is right for YOU. What it all means to YOU. I did and I came to my own conclusion that was right for me, the only real choice I had, and I chose what was right for ME. I’m only responsible for ME. (((hugs))))) You’re a smart man Matt, and I bet you can decide what is right for YOU.
Oxy: I’m seeing a pinball machine, with your mother bouncing around using all these dysfunctional patterns to just get herself to the same end result. Same behaviors expecting a different outcome? I sense panic, desperation.
I also sense the push-pull that happens when we try to change someone else. The more we try, the more they resist. Sometimes we can facilitate change by not pushing on the issue. To go just a tad bit metaphysical here, have you tried “releasing” your own emotional charge?
I’m not suggesting that you plan “family night” for Sunday dinner, but just a simple, personal exercise of letting go of your desire to make your mother aware of what she doesn’t want to see. Just sending out that vibration that since this is bigger than you, you are turning it over to other powers. And feel the feeling of letting it go.
If on some level she’s desperate to be loved, then she will turn to the one person who offers “love,” as toxic as you know that to be. She sounds bitterly lonely, and as if she has no tools to build bridges to reclaim any grace in her life. How very, very sad.
And none of that is meant to take away from your need to protect yourself and your recovering strength.
Matt: Of course you know that an S/P will ALWAYS find fault with anything you do. Rather than be complimented because you cared enough to explore a cultural heritage, it was just one more thing he could use to rile you up.
I learned many things in my short time in SE Asia. I learned about a rigorous cultural attitude about always allowing people to save face — which, apparently, your ex did not understand. Somewhere I believe I read that the S/P rate is only about 1% in Japan, versus 4% in our society. You know, of course, that you richly deserve better!
It’s kind of long, but I think I have a good one, a letter my S gave me just before Christmas, 2007. At the time he was involved with another woman–the woman he’d had a four-year affair with and planned to leave me for in May of that year (a plan foiled when I figured everything out)–but wasn’t willing to admit it. Oh no. He’d spent too many years perfecting his image of adoring husband and devoted father to ever let anyone know that, in actuality, he was pure bastard. So his challenge was twofold: one, to make it look as though he loved me and still wanted to be with me (he had moved out in June after I said something that provoked him to get angry and leave) and, two–and more importantly–to manipulate me to be the one to say our marriage was through.
Enough time has passed now that I can view what he wrote as almost comical. At the time, it was anything but funny because I was still in the phase where I could not bear to think that this man did not want me. Here’s the letter:
“My dearest Gillian,
“I don’t know where to start. I want you to know I know the depth of your pain. I hear it, I feel it, I hate what I’ve done to you. TO US! It hurts to see how bad you hurt. I understand why you can’t trust me and I hope that someday you will see how much I regret what I have done.
“I’ve been depressed and really wish I could make it up to you. I can’t keep hurting you like this.
“The problem is I will never be able to say the things you need me to say. I don’t think you could ever forgive me unless you hear what you need to. Even if I tell you that which you need to know, I still don’t think you will ever trust or forgive me. That is a place neither of us wants to be.
“The fighting must stop. It will destroy us both.
“I know if you could forgive me, the trust still won’t be there.
“If I could earn your trust and forgiveness our lives could be restored. I don’t know how to do that from here. Do you think it possible? Could it be possible if I were home where you could see change?
“I think it possible but not from afar. I feel, for the sake of the family, you should let me come home and prove myself. I don’t say I’ve made a complete transformation; I have much work to do but you won’t be able to see it unless you see me. Could you do this?
“I want to come home. I miss you. I miss my family. You don’t know how much I love you. You don’t know, even with all I’ve done, how blessed we have been to find each other. And you don’t know how tragic I think it is that we should ever part.
“I ask that you consider carefully what I have said, know that I want to be with you for the rest of my life. Losing you would be a shame. We are so good together.
“Please don’t let my mistakes cost us our family. I know you could be glad we found each other again. Let God’s plan work for us as a couple. Our family will benefit greatly and I know you won’t regret it.
“But we both regret things as they are, accusing, fighting, suspecting, hurting, doubting, missing each other without a solution.
“Forgive me please Gill, or let me go. Send me away or summon me to you, but either way move forward. Don’t look back lest you regret your choice.
“I’d rather spend the rest of my life making it up to you than live my life without you.
“Love always, ____________”